Wario Land: Shake It
It’s about time Nintendo gave Wario the true kind of treatment he deserves and Wario Land: Shake It looks to be the Wario Land game I’ve been anticipating for years. Wario happens to be my favorite of the classic Nintendo characters because of his crude sense of humor and his ability to be a complete jerk about everything. Also, he happens to be a very effective character in most Mario games because he’s one of the only mid-weight characters that has both weight and speed. However, what really makes Wario so awesome are the older Wario Land titles (1, 2, and 3) that defined many different types of gameplay elements. Wario Land 1 had the gameplay of the earlier Mario Land titles while Wario Land 2 & 3 took a different approach, with 2 providing a multi-pathed game and 3 a nonlinear masterpiece. The trick was making Wario invulnerable and focusing the gameplay on puzzle solving.
This time around, the game looks to be a good combination of both types of gameplay. Though the game doesn’t look to have as many different paths as Wario Land 3, there are secret levels. Also, Wario has hits so it is possible to die. This time around, Wario has a couple new tricks up his sleeve using the motion controls. He can still pick up enemies and throw them at different angles but the angle is determined by the rotation of the WiiMote. Also, Wario can pound the ground with his fist to create earthquakes by forcing the WiiMote up and down and make things fall or kill enemies. Though we didn’t get to play too much more of the game than one level, it looks from the videos like the game is a good median between a casual and hardcore game (something that’s quite easy to pick up but difficult to complete).
The basic controls are simple like in Wario Land. You hold the WiiMote like an NES controller and 2 jumps, 1 charges and throws enemies if you’re holding them. If you grab any enemy or item, you can shake it by shaking the WiiMote. You can collect coins and jewels to use in a shop to buy items such as extra hits and potions. Also, we saw 5 continents in the demo with 5 or so levels per continent. Each level has 3 to 4 missions to accomplish but to progress through the game you must free a Merfle in each level. The graphics are 2D/3D and the animations look great.
Wario Land: Shake it looks to be a great new sidescroller and I only hope that it can live up to the greatness of Wario Land 3. We’ll be waiting for this game’s release on September 29th so stay tuned for our in depth review.
